Today the volume of 802.11 products is on the rise, thus making it challenging to control the escalation of radio frequency interference. Even in enterprise environments, with IT (Information Technology) support staff, configuration of 802.11 RF (Radio Frequency) parameters to minimize interference requires a huge amount of work. In addition, while the configuration may be initially optimal, when the environment changes (e.g., a neighboring office installs a new wireless network) the configuration may require adjustment. In an ESS mesh network, identification of an optimal configuration is challenging, since the selected configuration will not necessarily be optimal for each AP (Access Point) and will instead be optimal for the network as a whole.
A current method for RF configuration is a manual method where a site survey is performed at the time of network deployment. However, this solution does not adapt to changes in the environment.
In known centralized methods APs report to a single predefined central device, which makes all configuration decisions. Centralized solutions require each network to include a specialized node, introducing a single point of failure. In addition, a centralized approach requires nodes to constantly report their status to the controlling node, introducing additional management overhead.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved operation for configuring an ESS mesh network.